


like a moth to you

by deandratb



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, dad!Schneider feels, kid fluff with the extended family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 17:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: Minific; Penelope realizes how good Schneider is with the kids in her family.





	like a moth to you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Inspired by [this](http://actuallylorelaigilmore.tumblr.com/post/183305075980/i-stayed-up-all-night-to-watch-umbrella-academy) comment from [caffeinated-pens](https://caffeinated-pens.tumblr.com/). I just have a lot of Schneider + kids feelings.

“ _Tía!_ ” 

Penelope opened her arms as wide as she could, to try and hug all five of the kids that swarmed her when she crouched down to say hi.

She remembered when the youngest was still in diapers. Now Louisa was a ball of energy with curly hair flying everywhere, outrunning her older cousins--all boys.  _Time was moving faster every year_.

“Where is  _Tío_  Schneider?” Javi asked, and Penelope looked around automatically before actually thinking about his words. Okay, so Schneider had come to a lot of family events lately. 

_Okay, maybe he had come to **all**  of them._

“I don’t know where he went,” she admitted with a second glance around. “But he’s here somewhere.”

Her  _Mami_ had insisted that Schneider come to the wake. He’d only met her cousin Antonio once, right after she and the kids had moved back--but the whole family would be there. And Penelope couldn’t disagree with her  _Mami’s_ declaration that they would all want to see him.

She hadn’t realized just how quickly they had accepted him, though, if her nieces and nephews were any indication. They seemed more excited to find Schneider than they were to see her.

“He owes us rides!” Javi insisted, tugging on her hand.

“He’s as big as a mountain,” his brother told her seriously. “The biggest mountain.”

_Huh._

Wasn’t it weird that she had never really noticed that? She knew it, obviously, she couldn’t be unaware of it when she stood next to him--and she stood next to him a lot. But she never thought about it.

Tall, to Penelope, was a feeling as much as it was a physical  _thing._  And Schneider felt comfortable and close and friendly. He didn’t take up more than his fair share of space in a room.

“There he is,” Louisa exclaimed, pointing a stubby finger at Schneider standing in the doorway. Penelope was abandoned instantly, as she watched the kids clamor for his attention.

It made her smile not just because they were all so happy to see him, but because Schneider was so visibly happy to see them, too. Which shouldn’t be surprising, because little kids loved without reservations, and Schneider accepted love the same way.

He had always been so good with her own kids, and she’d seen him handle other tenants’ babies and grandbabies with ease.

With her own family, though, it was still kind of a shock.

Schneider had long ago stopped being an uninvited dinner guest; years had passed since the last time Penelope wondered to herself why he kept coming around. Her  _Mami_  had a lot to do with that, with folding him into her family as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Nobody had done that with the larger _familia._  Penelope had never told  _Tia_ Bitchy to treat Schneider like one of them, but there she was, criticizing the casual way he swung Louisa up through the air and onto his shoulders--as bluntly as she offered up snide remarks about Elena’s outfit and Alex’s social media.

Penelope had never asked her giggling single cousins to stop ogling his  _fondillo_  the way she knew they would any available man who tagged along. But there was a remarkable lack of flirting coming from their corner, replaced by questions about the projects he was working on or asking him for advice.

And the kids...the kids had adored him from his first  _hola_. It didn’t matter to them that  _Tío_  Schneider could only understand half of what they said, or that he didn’t look like them. He spoke in superhero metaphors and was never too busy to get down on the carpeted floor in his designer jeans and play.

 _It was really a shame,_  Penelope found herself thinking as she watched him laughing across the room, one kid hanging off his back and another tugging on his hand, that Schneider didn’t seem interested in kids of his own.

_He would be an amazing father._

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "Sunlight" by Hozier.


End file.
